Headline, March 19 2022/ ''' '' INTERNET ECONOMICS INTERVAL '' '''

''' '' INTERNET ECONOMICS

 INTERVAL '' '''

NOT SINCE THE iPHONE HAS the belief that a new technology could change industry run so deep. Cloud computing companies are rushing to deliver chatbot tools, even as they worry the technology will gut other parts of their businesses.

E-commerce outfits are dreaming of new ways to sell things. Social media platforms are being flooded with posts written by bots. And publishing companies are fretting that even more dollars will be squeezed out of digital advertising.

The volatility of chatbots has made it impossible to predict their impact. In one second, the systems impress by fielding a complex request for a five-day itinerary, making Google's search engine look archaic. A moment later, they disturb by taking conversations in dark directions and launching verbal assaults.

The result is an industry gripped with the question : What do we do now?

''Everybody is agitated,'' said Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist at Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. ''There's a lot of value to be won or lost.''

RARELY HAVE SO MANY TECH SECTORS been simultaneously exposed. The A.I. systems could disrupt $100 billion in cloud spending, $500 billion in digital advertising and $5.4 trillion in e-commerce sales, according to totals from IDC, a market research firm, and GroupM, a media agency.

Google, perhaps more than any other company, has reason to both love and hate the chatbots. It has decided a ''code red'' because their abilities could be a blow to its $162 billion business showing ads on searches.

But Google's cloud computing business could be a big winner. Smaller companies like Box need help building chatbot tools, so they are turning to the giants that process, store and manage information across the web.

Those companies - Google, Microsoft and Amazon - are in a race to provide businesses with the software and substantial computing power behind their A.I. chatbots.

''The cloud computing providers have gone all in A.I. over the last few months,'' said Clement Delangue, head of the A.I. company Hugging Face, which helps run open-source projects similar to ChatGPT.

''They are realizing that in a few years, most of the spending will be on A.I., so it is important for them to make big bets.''

When Microsoft introduced a chatbot equipped Bing search engine last month, Yusuf Mehdi, the head of Bing said the company was wrestling with how the new version would make money.

Advertising will be a major driver, he said, but the company expects fewer ads than traditional search allows.

''We're going to learn that as we go,'' Mr. Mehdi said.

As Microsoft figures out a chatbot business model, it is forging ahead with plans to sell the technology to others. It charges $10 a month for cloud service, built in conjunction with the OpenAIlab, that provides developers with coding suggestions among other things.

Google has similar ambitions for its A.I. technology. After introducing its Bard chatbot last month, the company said its cloud customers would be able to tap into that underlying system for their own businesses.

Sridhar Ramaswamy, who led Google's advertising division from 2013 to 2018, said Microsoft and Google recognized their current search business might not survive. ''The wall of ads and sea of blue links is a thing of the past,'' said Mr. Ramaswamy, who now runs Neeva, a subscription-based search engine.

Amazon, which has a larger share of the cloud market than Microsoft and Google combined, has not been as public in its chatbot pursuit as the other two, though it has been working on A.I. technology for years.

But in January, Andy Jassy, Amazon's chief executive, corresponded with Mr. Delangue of Hugging Face, and weeks later Amazon expanded a partnership to make it easier to offer Hugging Face's software to customers.

As that underlying tech, known as generative A.I., becomes more widely available, it could fuel new ideas in e-commerce.

Late last year, Manish Chandra, the chief executive of Poshmark, a popular online secondhand store, found himself daydreaming during a long flight from India about chatbots' building profiles of people's tastes, then recommending and buying clothes or electronics. He imagined grocers instantly fulfilling orders for a recipe.

''It becomes your mini-Amazon,'' said Mr. Chandra, who has made integrating generative A.I. into Poshmark one of the company's top priorities over the next three years. ''That layer is going to be very powerful and disruptive and start almost a new layer of retail.''

But generative A.I. is causing other headaches. In early December, users of Stack Overflow, a popular social network for computer programmers, began posting substandard coding advice written by ChatGPT.

Moderators quickly banned A.I. - generated text.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Internet, E-Commerce and Future, continues. The World Students Society thanks authors Tripp Mickle, Cade Metz, and Nico Grant.

With most respectful dedication to the Global Founders Framers of  The World Students Society -the exclusive ownership of every student in the world - and then Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

See Ya all prepare for Great Global Elections on !WOW! : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:

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